It’s rare to find a story that ends thrice. Hell, it’s rare to find a story that ends twice. The vast majority of fiction gets a single ending, good or bad, and that’s what we have to deal with. But Evangelion, of course, is not the vast majority of fiction. It’s a masterpiece, an icon, a game-changer, a generation-definer, and every other superlative you could throw at it. It’s been an object of endless praise, endless disgust, endless fascination, and endless discussions of every stripe. If there was any story worthy of ending three times, any story with enough depth to justify ending three times, it would be Evangelion. First came the TV ending, a product of a production meltdown somehow finding true meaning in its own compromised abstraction. Next was End of Evangelion, a veritable cataclysm of imagery and ideas bursting forth unchained from its creator’s mind. And now, over two decades later, the story has concluded once more with Thrice Upon a Time, the last of the Rebuild movies, almost a decade in the making. As long as I’ve been an anime fan, this movie has been a question hanging over the entire franchise. Its eternally unfinished nature was something of a punchline. With so many years passing since 3.0, many were beginning to wonder if this movie would ever even come out. It seemed like the Rebuilds would remain eternally incomplete, the questions they posed about their own existence forever unanswered. Just one more confounding uncertainty in a franchise lousy with them.

And yet, against all odds, Thrice Upon a Time is here. The movie was finished and release. Evangelion is over, for the third time in a row. But this isn’t just one more iteration of an Eva climax. It’s not just the end of this usual series of Rebuild movies. No, 3.0 + 1.0 is, well, the end of Evangelion. The true end of Evangelion. The end not just of the Rebuilds, but of the franchise itself. It’s a swan song for everything that Evangelion has become, everything that it’s meant to people, and everything we must become in its passing. It’s an elegy to itself and the people who cared about it, a two-and-a-half-hour goodbye that’s been twenty-six years in the making. And in retrospect, perhaps it was inevitable for it to be anything but.

As I discussed in my review of You Can (Not) Redo, the third Rebuild made it clear that these movies are all about the Shinjis of the world who never grew up. Evangelion was a source of hope and change for so many people who saw themselves in its listless, lost protagonist. It gave comfort to so many people who saw their struggles with depression and isolation reflected in Shinji’s journey. But some of those fans, rather than taking Evangelion’s lessons to heart in their own lives, chose to nestle deep into its bosom and never leave. It was a source of comfort, yes, but also a prison preventing them from growing up and growing beyond the boy on screen. For some, the Evangelion franchise is as much a symbol of paralysis and arrested development as Eva-01 is to Shinji. And the reason the Rebuilds exist is to interrogate that paralysis. Giving us familiar iconography and easy, indulgent solutions before viciously ripping them away. Showing us a world that continues to grow and change while Shinji, literally and figuratively, remains a child. The question posed by the Rebuilds is nothing more or less than the question of how to move on from Evangelion. How do we break the Eva’s shell and find our way to self-actualization? How do we escape this prison we’ve built for ourselves and face the world in all its beautiful, terrifying possibility? How do we, like Shinji, stop repeating the same mistakes over and over again and accept life and our place in it?

How does a boy like Shinji grow into a man?

And with this question finally clear, Thrice Upon a Time fully dedicates itself to answering it. It’s hard to discuss without getting into spoilers, and I don’t want to ruin this film’s many surprises for those who’ve yet to see it. Suffice to say, though, after an opening action scene that ups the bar for sheer Gurren Lagann-inspired lunacy in this franchise, there’s literally no action for the entire first half of the movie. The first hour and change is a period of reflection, exploring the world that’s grown and managed to survive amid the destruction of the Third Impact. It gives all the characters a chance not just to breathe, but find themselves. Outside the demands of piloting an Eva and being wrapped up in Seele/NERV’s plans, Shinji, Asuka and Rei begin to discover sides of themselves they never knew existed. They try new things, they come to new conclusions, they experiment with a life that’s lived on no one’s terms but their own. For the first time in the entire franchise, we see what it looks like when these characters, free from the shackles of the prison known as Evangelion, get to be free. We see who they choose to be, what they decide to become, the versions of themselves that they ultimately find strength in. It’s sixty minutes of pure self-actualization and it’s one of the most moving stretches of cinema I’ve seen in a very long time. Seeing these traumatized kids finally begin to live after two decades of suffering... god. I don’t have the words to do it justice.

But it wouldn’t be Evangelion if happiness wasn’t won through blood, sweat and suffering. And after a first half dominated by slow-burn character work, the second half is able to plunge straight ahead into this franchise’s biggest, longest, most apocalyptic battle of all time. From here to the end, it’s nothing but sheer, unadulterated chaos as Misato and Wille attempt to stop Gendo’s final plan from coming to fruition. The imagery is utterly insane. The scope of the battlefield is incomprehensible. The sheer volume of high-concept abstract ideas thrown around makes the entirety of last film look like a coloring book. Huge lore revelations explode into being one after the other, each one making less sense than the last but who cares when they result in spectacle this fantastic? Well, for the most part; by far this movie’s biggest flaw is that some of its CG-heavy animation just looks... bad. Like, really bad. Studio Khara’s mostly done a really great job of making its CG elements look good, but a lot of stuff in this movie just does not work visually. Maybe if they’d spent less time lovingly rendering so many unnecessary ass shots, they could’ve retooled the CG and made it look better. But no, apparently tasteless fanservice continues to be one hill this franchise just can’t shake off no matter how hard it tries. Blegh.

And then... there’s the ending.

I won’t spoil what goes down during Shinji and Gendo’s final confrontation. It’s too transcendent a sequence not to experience blind. All I can say is that here, at the end of all things, Shinji finally grows up... and we grow up with him. We grow past the fear that kept us trapped. We grow past the self-loathing that imprisoned us inside the Evangelions of our own making. Imagery from past endings collides, disintegrates, and reconstructs itself. Every character is released from their chains and let out into the world, ready to face it at last. It feels like an act of spiritual cleansing, for us in the audience and every last character we’ve seen ourselves in for so many years. And it’s beautiful. It’s beautiful and overwhelming and I dare anyone not to turn into a blubbering mess by the end. Even after all these years, I’m not ready to say goodbye to Evangelion. I’m not ready to leave Shinji, Asuka, Rei, and all the rest behind. But impossibly, this ending makes me feel like I actually can. It makes me see how far I’ve come since I first watched the original show four years ago. It makes me understand how much they’ve given me, how much I’ve learned from them, how rewarding it’s been to see them rise up in triumph one last time. And if they’re ready to face the world at last... then maybe I am too.

And that’s always been the point, hasn’t it? Through all its permutations, through all its different versions, Evangelion has always been a story about moving on from Evangelion. From the very start, Hideaki Anno has used this franchise as a vessel to explore his demons, forever searching for a way forward. In the TV show’s original ending, he realized it was okay to try and love himself, despite all the voices in his head telling him he didn’t deserve to. In End of Evangelion, he plunged into the deepest depths of his despair, and yet came out the other side convinced there was still a chance for things to get better. Through all the darkest moments of this franchise, Evangelion has never lost hope that the lost children of the world- Shinji, Anno, all of us- could still find a way to grow up. And now, in Evangelion’s third ending, that path forward has finally opened to us. After twenty-six years, we’ve finally found the courage to leave our Evangelions behind and step out into the world as fully-formed people. First we accepted our base humanity, then we accepted our capacity for evil, and now, Thrice Upon a Time asks us to accept our capacity for good. Our ability to keep fighting until we finally find peace, to endure countless cycles of torment until we’re able to love ourselves, to spend twenty-six years stuck in childhood and still mange to grow up when all is said and done. It was never too late for us to be happy. It was never too late for us to embrace the world. And even if it took us longer than expected- in more ways than one- we were bound to find our way there eventually.

The Evangelions, after all, have always been representations of childhood.

And childhood was never meant to last forever.

It’s unlikely this franchise will ever fade from the public consciousness. We will still be talking about Evangelion for decades to come, just as we will always carry our childhoods with us to come extent. It will be with me forever; that much I know for sure. But we can still learn to let go, to appreciate what the past means to us without letting it define our future. The modern anime landscape, set in motion by Eva itself, will continue to grow and change, carving new paths of meaning and connection. The children who fell in love with this show will grow up and- hopefully- take its lessons to heart without wallowing in it. Ultimately, the best way I can think to honor Evangelion is to move on from Evangelion. Let Thrice Upon a Time be the franchise’s last entry, as it’s so clearly designed to be. This movie is as final a goodbye as one could possibly wish for, closing the book on twenty-six long years and looking forward to a future full of new possibilities. Evangelion is over, this time for good. And that’s okay. Because the gifts it gave to us will remain long after the final credits roll.

I said at the start of this review that it’s rare to find a story that ends thrice. It’s rarer still for each ending to be so good that the story feels incomplete without them. I was always satisfied with the TV show and End of Evangelion, to the point I was skeptical what point there was even making these Rebuild movies in the first place. Now, though, I can’t imagine Evangelion without them. Through all their ups and downs, these movies are as much part of the NGE tapestry as everything that’s come before. And while I still vastly prefer the show overall, I’m truly grateful for this sense of ultimate closure. I will always love Evangelion. I will always think about Evangelion. But now, I can leave it knowing that everyone I grew so attached to is going to be okay. That they’ve found their peace. That they’re working toward the lives they deserve.

And for all their sakes... I’ll work toward mine too.

Thank you, Shinji. Thank you, Rei, Thank you, Misato, Kensuke, Toji, Ritsuko, Yui, Kaji. Thank you, Asuka. God, thank you, Asuka. Thank you, Hideaki Anno. Thank you, Gainax. Thank you, Khara.

Thank you, Evangelion.

And to all the children... congratulations.